Loneliness of the Sharpshooter
by colobonema
Summary: It sucks, being the only one who remembers. Pre-game and in-game Irvine and Selphie.


Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.

* * *

**Loneliness of the Sharpshooter**

"Picked your weapon specialism yet? The deadline's on Friday."

Selphie twisted a curl of her hair around one finger as indecision threatened to reclaim her into its grip. "I was ninety percent settled on nunchaku, but... Projectiles look so cool. And sometimes I think I'd be better with knives, or-"

"Go for the nunchaku. It suits you." Saralee leaned back against the railing of Trabia Garden's basketball court, rusted and pitted from the snow that blanketed it for more than half of each year. She gave Selphie a conspiratorial grin, and wiggled her thick black eyebrows. "So have you seen any of the G-Garden cadets? The ones over for the training camp?"

"Nope."

"A couple of the guys are really cute, y'know."

Selphie peeled off a long flake of rust from the railing and flicked it through a hole in the fence. "So? What's the point, if they're only here for a week?"

Saralee rolled her eyes. "That's the _whole _point, Selphie. The moment when two souls come together, never to cross paths again... it's really romantic, right?"

"Yeah, I don't think the Galbadian boys are gonna be super interested in our _souls_." Selphie snickered. She craned her head to take a look at a group of newcomers to the court, three boys and two girls. "You can ask 'em yourself if you like, though. Look."

Saralee spun round, eager to appraise the visitors from the Western continent. The group walked over to the middle of the court, where one of the boys picked up a stray ball and started to bounce it on his knee.

Saralee breathed in admiration. "They're so _tall. _Don't you think they're taller than us?"

Selphie gave the Galbadians a cursory glance. True, they were a little taller than the average Trabian. But so what? Being short didn't stop her from being the fastest fighter in her combat classes, or the strongest magic user. "I guess. Probably better nutrition. They can grow crops all year round there."

Saralee nudged her and whispered, "Think that one likes you."

The tallest member of the group was staring straight at her, and not even trying to hide it. He was lanky and awkward, but exuded the nascent swagger of a teenager on the cusp of finally growing into his looks. Selphie had never seen a fifteen year-old wearing a stetson before, but he somehow made it work. The hat was perched on top of chin-length auburn hair, half of it scraped back into the beginnings of a ponytail.

He was still staring. Slowly, the intensity of his gaze never dimming, he tugged down on the brim of his stetson, and tipped his hat at her. A tentative smile crept across his lips.

Selphie blinked as he turned and took the basketball from his classmate. She felt Saralee's fingers dig into her shoulder.

"Selphie. _This is not a drill!_" she hissed. "He's totally into you."

She prised her friend's hand away. "Yeah, yeah."

"Go talk to him!"

"No thanks. I'm off to the Training Center, anyway." Selphie hopped off the railing and made her way around the edge of the court to the exit. She turned for a moment before she left, just as the cowboy gracefully lobbed the ball towards the hoop.

It missed.

One of his friends laughed, and the cowboy looked in her direction, an embarrassed grin on his face. Selphie gave him a shrug of commiseration, and as his classmates gathered round him with a barrage of good-natured insults, she slipped away.

* * *

She was sweaty, exhilarated and fully satisfied when she left the Training Center three hours later. Selphie was now one hundred percent settled on the nunchaku. It felt right in her hands. It made a gratifying _thwack _when it made contact with beast hide. It was versatile: she could use the sticks at close range when holding them with both hands, and for medium-range attacks when fully extended. Yes, it was definitely-

She stopped.

He was leaning against the wall of the corridor near the exit to the Training Center. The cowboy.

Staring, again. At her. Had he been waiting for her?

She looked back at him warily. There was a longing in his eyes that she couldn't understand. Selphie, surrounded by teenage boys every day in her life at Trabia Garden, was reasonably experienced in identifying the lusty gaze of the hormonal male adolescent, and this wasn't it. This was something else altogether.

"Sefie," he said at last, his voice heavy with emotion.

"It's 'Selphie'. Am I meant to know you or something?"

There was a desperation in his eyes as he answered, "It's me, Irvine."

"Nope, sorry." He was unnerving her now. She made to push past him, and he reached out to grab her arm.

"Sefie, come on! We were best friends!"

She pulled her arm free, and tried to keep her voice light, even as the other hand sneaked to the chain of her nunchaku. "Yeah, no. Pretty sure we weren't. I'm from Trabia. I'd have noticed if one of my besties was a Galbadian cowboy."

"In the orphanage. C'mon, don't say you've forgotten me. I cried my damn eyes out the day you were adopted."

_Orphanage?_

A fuzzy image flashed across her mind's eye. Stone pillars, a lighthouse... where had that come from?

"...Irvy?" she half-whispered, not entirely sure why.

He gave a hopeful smile. "Yeah, that's what you used to call me."

"But I don't... I don't know who you are. I don't know anything about an... orphanage."

Irvine leaned back against the wall and leveled her with a searching gaze. His brows furrowed under the brim of his hat. "Are you usin' GFs here at Trabia?"

"Why would I? Trabia doesn't allow them."

"Not actually an answer, Sefie."

She looked away. The way he had seen straight through her attempt at evasion unsettled her. It gave weight to his claim that they had been friends. But if that was true, why couldn't she remember him?

"Sefie. C'mon. I'm at G-Garden. I know as well as anyone that all kinds of shady stuff goes on under the instructors' radar. You can tell me. I won't report you. Even if I did, they're hardly gonna expel you on the say-so of an exchange student."

"Alright." She couldn't say why she felt able to trust him, but the words came out anyway. "I found a GF in a cave when I was a junior cadet. I junctioned it on and off for a couple of years. Kept it secret."

Irvine scowled, his eyes blazing. "Dammit, Sefie. That was dangerous as hell. No kid that young should be going near those things, especially unsupervised. Which one was it? What was it called?"

Selphie stared at him, shock creeping slowly into her mind as she realized she had no idea of the GF's name anymore. In fact, what had it even looked like?

"I... can't remember. I guess it erased my memories of itself when I unjunctioned it for good."

"Well, the goddamn thing ate your memories of _me, _so if you ever find out what its name was, tell me and I'll kick its ass."

He looked so riled up that she almost laughed. The idea of this skinny teenager taking on a Guardian Force was ridiculous. It was pointless, anyway. If the demigod really had stolen her memories, they were gone for good.

Irvine's face darkened at her smirk. "This is serious. Promise me you won't junction one of 'em ever again."

She gasped, affronted. "I'm not going to promise that! I've applied to the fast-track class for transfer to Balamb in two years. I want to be a SeeD."

His mouth fell open for a second, then he looked dismayed. "Don't do that to yourself, Sefie. Please. You're worth so much more."

"What are you talking about? SeeDs are the best of the best."

"The hell they are! They're soulless zombies, brains eaten up from the insides by goddamn GFs, making dirty money for Cid Kramer to hand over to that creepy Shumi thing!"

Selphie took a step back at the rising volume of his voice, and laughed nervously. "Sounds like you've been listening to some pretty weird conspiracy theories."

"Theories? Is that what you think?" he retorted fiercely. "Can't you see what's goin' on?"

"I-" She took another step away from him, and glanced behind her. The corridor was still empty. This conversation was getting too bizarre, and too uncomfortable.

His eyes softened, and he said in a quieter tone, "I don't want you to join SeeD, Sefie. Quit now, while you're still you."

"Look, I... I make my own decisions, okay?"

Irvine's shoulders slumped. "Yeah. You always did. Should've known that." He pulled his hat off and raked through his hair with one hand, loosening it from its ponytail. "When did you come to this Garden, anyway? What about the family who adopted you?"

She frowned. Here was another question that tugged at memories that had fragmented long ago. She didn't like it.

"I... I'm not really sure. They were nice, though. I wish I could remember what happened. Maybe I just wanted to join Garden, I guess? I don't remember anymore." She tried to pin down the fleeting images that broke apart as soon as she held them in her mind. A smiling woman, a... brother? Two brothers? No, it was no good. They were gone.

"What were your parents like?" she asked.

"Parent. Just the one. The family Matron found for me was a single mom. Laura Kinneas. She was an awesome lady. Bought me my first gun."

"...Was?"

"Yeah." Then, in a much smaller voice, he added, "Goddamn cancer."

He jammed the stetson back on his head and yanked it down so that she couldn't see his eyes.

"Sorry, Irvy." She meant it.

"Thanks. Well... I went to G-Garden after that. I was eleven."

He leaned against the wall again, and she joined him in silence for a while. Two girls walked past, heading into the Training Center. One turned her head to give Irvine a thorough once-over. He glanced at her distractedly. It dawned on Selphie that female attention was probably something that Irvine was well accustomed to. Objectively, he was very pleasing to the eye. The girl shot Selphie an envious look and tugged on her friend's arm as they disappeared through the Center's sliding door.

Irvine's eyes were back on Selphie now. He reached out a hesitant hand, lightly touching her shoulder.

"I thought I'd never see you again, Sefie. All this time I... Never stopped wondering what happened to you, y'know?"

She offered him a hesitant smile. She couldn't return whatever he felt, not even a small part of it, but she could give him that at least.

He exhaled, a long and relieved sigh. "Damn, I missed you. Don't you go forgettin' me again."

"I'll try not to, I guess."

She let him pull her slowly into an embrace. She'd hugged male friends before, but this was more intimate. Not romantic, exactly. Irvine's arms were gentle around her. Respectful. He broke away after a few moments, and smiled down at her.

"I'll be countin' on it, Sef."

* * *

_Two Years Later_

He watched the butterfly slowly flap its wings as it landed on his finger, then float away as quickly as his sense of security had earlier that morning when Headmaster Martine gave him his orders.

Irvine stood, swinging his rifle over his shoulder. He carefully plastered his trademark lazy smirk on his face to mask the confusion and horror that had raged in him since he'd been informed that his latest mission was the assassination of a woman who _had _to be, surely - if it was possible for a person to have a complete, monstrous personality transplant - the sweet Matron who had been his foster mother at the orphanage all those years ago. Her name, her face: there was no mistaking it.

He strode over to face the group of SeeDs who would be joining him in destroying his childhood, and with a sinking feeling saw that the situation was exactly as he'd feared. He walked up and down the line-up, taking in the grown-up appearance of the children he'd so often played with, quarreled with, cried with. Bossy little Quisty, now tall, stern and icy-eyed. Crybaby Zell, packed all over with muscle, and currently fixing him with a look of deep suspicion. Squall, guarded and blank-faced as ever. A black-haired girl Irvine didn't know, but judging by that fudged salute, she was patently a civilian pretending to be a SeeD for some reason. He'd get to the bottom of that later.

And then there was _her. _Selphie. Clad in a yellow mini-dress, she looked more like a ray of sunshine than ever, and the baser part of him definitely appreciated the sight of those long, slender legs. But she was just the same as the rest of them, her dull green eyes displaying a complete, crushing lack of recognition. _Junctioned up to her eyeballs, I'll bet. Oh, Sefie..._

"Leave whenever you're ready," Martine's cold, clipped voice intoned. "Failure is not an option." Galbadia Garden's Headmaster turned on his heel and walked away.

Irvine turned and pointed his fingers at Martine, in a childish imitation of a gun.

"Bang!" he said mockingly, with feeling.

_Bang, _and Matron would drop dead. _Bang, _and he would become the man who assassinated the Sorceress. _Bang, _and Selphie, Squall, Zell and Quistis would never know, nor care, the significance of the life they had taken.

The road ahead for Irvine Kinneas was a lonely one, but nobody was going to walk it for him, so he tugged down on the brim of his hat and took his first steps.

* * *

A/N: A one-shot for Irvine's birthday, albeit a couple of days late!


End file.
